Files: Freedom of Religion and Belief
EIPR welcomed the decision of the Zagazig Criminal Court on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 - to release Quranist researcher and blogger Reda Abdel Rahman without bail pending investigations in Kafr Saqr emergency state security misdemeanor N
February 26, 2022, the Administrative Court of the First Circuit (Liberties) held the first hearing of Case No.
EIPR presents the government and parliament with executive and legislative proposals to guarantee the basic rights of people of “unrecognized” religions and beliefs in Egypt
Haider Kandil, a journalist and member of the Shiite sect, told the EIPR's researchers that the Cairo airport authorities prevented him from traveling on the morning of Saturday, December 11th, seized his passport and ordered him to go to the Nati
EIPR also warns of the danger of using Article 27 of the Law to Combat Electronic Crimes issued in 2018 to target the same spectrum of non-traditional ideas and trends, under the pretext of “misuse of social media.” Last June as well.
The court did not allow the lawyers to obtain the case file and only allowed them to see it quickly, and the case documents did not include any specific publications published by the defendants that would qualify as promoting Shiite doctrine, while the accusation articles included article 98 (f) of the Penal Code known as “contempt of religions” that punishes "promoting extremist ideas that ridicule divinely-revealed religions."
This ruling comes in a broader context of prosecutions and trials for online expression in general, and for religious expression in particular, and includes a wide range of persecuting of unconventional Islamic ideas such as criticism of some of the revered traditional figures of Sunni Islam, or the expression of ideas of non-Sunni Islamic sects such as Shiites, Ahmadiyya and the Quranites, in addition to expressing atheistic ideas or declaring unbelief and criticizing religions.
